The Journey of Eurydice

Because it helps me learn, I write articles on various wine-related subjects that synthesize the information in all of my textbooks on various subjects. I post them here for those of you who many not have as many books, or who want a shortened version with links and pictures. Enjoy.

Livejournal, facebook, etc are being flooded with the annual barrage of "comment if you want Christmas Cards!" posts.

Cheap Christmas cards are on the order of 22 cents apiece. Postage is 44 cents. Paper, ink, printing, and shipping (especially in the quantities that occur in December!) are a waste of precious resources for an outdated and largely irrelevant tradition. Developed society is largely in communication via electronic means. Christmas cards, additionally, are usually secular and have very little to do with Christianity, especially given that the date of Christmas was suspiciously altered to align with the birth of the European pagan god. Besides which, I'm not Christian.

In the spirit of seasonality and secular December traditions, however, I now invite you to comment, and I will donate the 66 cents it would have cost me to send you a Christmas card to the Salvation Army instead.

This is the fine print under the biohazard on one generic humanoid carbon unit, serial number TC11031983.

"You're better off without me. What makes me sexy is that I am not afraid to love. I may be wrong, but I'm never boring. I'll give you stars and the moon and the open highway and a river beneath your feet... days of adventure and nights full of passion, no strings, just warm summer rain. It may be lonely but it's brutally free. I will give my everything to become your worst addiction. I will be eleven on your scale of one to ten. I'll be the waterwings that save you if you start drowning in an open tab when you're judegment's on the brink... I'll be your winter coat that's buttoned straight up to the throat, with the collar up, so you wont catch cold. I am willing to march into hell for a heavanly cause. The world hates losers, but maybe this time, I'll win. Girliness is a guilty addiction, a sin, a secret need, like nicotene, or chocolate. Of course I care if you like me, too. Not because sex changes things but because caring is a prereq to the sex. I am me, no more, no less, all I ever was, and all I ever will be. I've stopped apologizing. It's got to be good enough, because it's all I'm going to get. You have reasons not to like me and I have reasons not to like you. With that kind of elitism, we'll all spend forever alone. I've seen the good and the bad since day one, and accepted it all. I love you even when you tell me the truth. I remember that (s)he has sent us nothing but angels. That is unconditional. That is love. God is unconditional love. Thou art god. That is what I mean when I say, "Share water, darlings!" Even though I know that everything might go downhill from here, I'm not afraid. I am more than thou art now, for I am a fool, and thou art nothing. No man is ever completely evil, and some parts of "I love you" never becomes lies... Before you regret me forever, I just want you to know I tried."

I haven't said it in awhile. Some people seem to have forgotten, and some may not yet have been told. Someone was surprised by it today, so I'm going to say it again.

Tiamat is an ideal. Ideals live in the minds of those who hold them. Many people have moved on from this one, which is completely fine. However, I still hold it. Therefore Tiamat is still here.Tiamat is TC's House Where People Live.It is the place you can go when there's nowhere to go.It is a place for stray cats and stray people.You are safe here.I love you whether I should or not.I love you even when you're wrong.I love you even when you tell me the truth.That is unconditionalThat is love.Tiamat is love.God is unconditional love.Thou art god.Share water, darlings!

I cannot tell you how very, very much that is EXACTLY WHAT I LIKE physically, and have liked, since I was about 13. Big blonde mowhawk? Omg. I'm so there. Yesterday. <3 He's also more than adequately smart and nerdy (he's a high school math teacher. We talked everything from social and sexual roles to fantasy/scifi tropes to microbrews) but but but.... he's just so... unmasculine.

Bleergh.

Not in a... the way a flamboyant gay man will act "girly" way. No. No one would ever come up to him in a bar and give him shit for being girly. He's still a big punk rock boy. He's just such an ... activist / anarcha-feminist / anti-racist that he ABSOLUTELY REFUSES TO INDULGE IN ANY KIND OF SOCIALLY "MASCULINE" BEHAVIOR. I get WHY he's learned to be so utterly inoffensive. He is a straight white man. Of COURSE every marginalized subculture has always treated him like an embodiment of the enemy. As the activist/anarcho/vegan/punk sort, of course he's become involved in every kind of social equality movement. So of course his hyper-caution around women is logical.

But, but... I LIKE that men are socially conditioned to be men.

If women were socially conditioned to be like that, I would like women. I don't even care about the bits. It's the assertiveness I like. In Ellen's words, "I AM BIG MANZ" behavior. Evolutionary biology has, logically, rewarded alpha behavior. I, like many women, am biologically hardwired to be interested in dominance, assertiveness, confidence, and everything else than men are socially trained to be. As an extremely alpha person myself, this narrows even further my range of acceptability. As I often find myself saying, "I can't stand a man with less balls than I have." It's pervasive - even in, like, the way men MOVE. When I went through the obligatory bi-researching phase in college (I say bi-researching and not bi-curious because I was never curious. I just went to such a liberal school that I got sick of everyone bitching at me to "come out already" and saying "you can't knock it 'til you try it"... so I tried it. And tried it. And tried it. Still straight. Very sure of it now.) I observed that I cannot stand the way women kiss. I've only kissed, I dunno, maybe 20 or so women? So it's far from a scientific survey, but it's enough anecdotal experience to make me tire of the act of collecting data now that I can tell rabid gay advocates to back the fuck off on the homophobia accusations. I find that most women are so horribly passive they bore the crap out of me. Kristina was the worst. Fucking damsel in a tower. She doesn't put her arms around anyone she's kissing, which men let her get away with. She just flops her hands daintily on his chest and lays her head down and makes herself small and lets herself be held. No holding of others. Just being held.

Yeah, that doesn't work at all for me.

I kind of understand, in reflection, a lot of the terminology that has developed in gay (masculine) subculture. It doesn't come up in heterosexual culture because a lot of the aspects are attributed to gender roles and left at that. If a girl is being hyper-passive, she's just being a girl. If a girl actually moves and participates, she's generally praised as being a rare find, but it's not such a widespread phenomenon that a word has been invented to categorize her "type" with.

Gay men call that trait of being an active and participatory sexual recipient being a "power bottom."

It's a little disturbing to me that there exists no equivalent terminology for heterosexual women. Are heterosexual women expected to be non-participatory? My anecdotal experience indicates this may be the case. Both the consistent pattern of men being surprised at how actively I participate (go figure, right?) and of women I've been with consistently being terrible. I find it's very rare that women are willing to break this archetype. (I wouldn't be surprised if there was a misleading high ratio of my friends who were willing to break it, as I hang out with exceptional people.) The only woman I've ever enjoyed kissing was an extremely aggressive bulldyke who moved exactly like a man.

Which gets me back to my original point.

Punk rock boy may be pretty, and smart, and interesting, and too progressive to be a bigot, but seriously? OMG. Make a decision. Make a move. Take a risk. Be a little politically incorrect. Know the rules, then break them. You know it's a role. You know it's an archetype. Fine. So do I. It's still a means of communication. There was a physical theater / pantomime improv class at the actors gym years ago called "risk and relationship." Yes. That. Exactly. Risk offending people to reach out and communicate with them. It is on that which we build a rapport. If everyone keeps being so timid and self-contained, we will never speak. And his complete "bumming all that work off on the woman just so I won't be called a skeeze if I do it, and besides, it's overdue" attitude? Is unattractive. It's one thing to be OPEN TO and supportive of women making the first move. But to steadfastly refuse to make the first move ever is not going to actually help anyone get past their binding gender roles. I did message him first. Because of who I am already, not because I am a mind-reader and knew that's what he wanted. I also messaged dozens of other guys first over the years - all of whom had much stronger masculine socialization and didn't need to "encourage" me. And as someone who needs no encouragement to be bold, I'm still a girl, want to be the girl, and want you to be the boy. I went through my gender dysmorphic phase and decided I didn't want to change my body. I've already thought through the fact that I think I was trapped in the "wrong" body and that in this day and age I do have the scientific means to artificially change that. Okay, fine. I originally wanted to play a boy again, but I got cast as a girl this time around. It's taken me the last ten years, but I've decided to embrace it and get good at playing the girl. I'm liking it now, 'kay?

I'm glad for the socially progressive movement that they have an intelligent and dedicated contributor to their cause. But so much for any ATTRACTION.

Jeremy has been sending me stories from (The Customer Is) Not Always Right.com for the past couple of days. Some are witty or goofy, but many are just stories of amazingly asinine people encountered in the service industry.

It puts me in mind of a conversation I once had with my mom when i was 19 and strictly vegan.

awibs: she called me up, very excitedawibs: the conversation actually began with baout 15 minutes of asanine irrelevance, which i will cutawibs: then she gets to "and in the television, on channel eleven, i saw a story about a restaurant that was VEEE-gan so i would like to tell you about it."awibs: me: "oh, cool, what's it called?"awibs: her: "well, i don't remember the name, but it's very unique. i'm sure you can find it. it's VEE-gan."awibs: me: "yes, there are a bunch of vegan and vegetarian restaurants in the city. i;ve been to most of them. can you tell me anything about it? maybe i'll recognize it."awibs: her: "oh, it's very unique. it's VEEE-gan. no animals. they don't kill any animals in anything."awibs: me: "yes, mom, i know. i'm vegan."awibs: her: "it's very trendy nowsadays. all the kids these days are big into hurting no animals, and let's go cry for mother earth, and things like that. i suppose it's not too bad after all. there are worse things you could be into."awibs: "okay, yes, mom, was there anythign else?"awibs: her: "I wanted to tell you about this restaurant!"awibs: me: "yes, thank you. but you'll have to give me some kind of identifying features if i'm going to know which vegan restaurant you're talking about."awibs: her: "it's owned by black people!"awibs: me: "....."awibs: her: "are you listening, tc, BLACK PEOPLE!"awibs: me: "mom, i'm pretty sure there is more than one restaurant in chicago owned by black people."awibs: her: "NO! you are not listening! you never listen. this restaurant is very unique! it' is VEE-gan and owned by BLACK PEOPLE. No one makes food like that! black people, tc, BLACK PEOPLE!"awibs: "okay, mom, thank you anyway."

Fun. And instant, eyebrow-raising recognition. Suddenly the majority gets to feel what the minority feels. In a moment they feel what it’s like to have their relationship downgraded, and to have a much taken-for-granted right called into question because of another’s beliefs.

Recently added to my okcupid profile, due to a large number of messages that range from mildly off-putting to stalkerish:

"Also: I have an unshakable bias against being attracted to playtrons. I'm sorry. I know it's unfair, but if one of your profile pictures is you as a playtron, I'm probably going to have an instinctual "bleeech" reaction. This is probably a result of the extremely large quantity of gross, gross, creepy audience members and customers who have drunkenly, unwelcomely hit on the singer/bellydancer/waitress over the years. It takes an exceptionally high level of hot/sober/witty/not-creepy to overcome the heebie-jeebies I get when you approach me in the context of an audience member or bar customer.

And if you are wearing stretch velour for any purpose other than the gay pride parade in one of your profile pictures, thank you very much for coming to my show, please tip me and enjoy the rest of your day."

I mean, if you are wearing stretch velour FOR the gay pride parade, that's actually probably pretty hot.

[01:53] paul.j.fenwick@gmail.com: Framing has a very definite effect on how much people enjoy things. People who are given the description of their wine and how fabulously it compliments their meal do enjoy it much more.[01:53] paul.j.fenwick@gmail.com: And we've done studies to demonstrate this. There's all sorts of neat neurological effects, too.[01:54] awibs: you can only alter perception so much[01:54] awibs: well, with few exceptions[01:54] awibs: some people can sell you shit like its gold[01:54] awibs: some people REALLY are that good[01:54] awibs: most of us ordinary humans though[01:54] paul.j.fenwick@gmail.com: The actual wine does help. ;) But you can certainly enhance it.[01:54] awibs: can only alter perception, say, 10%. arbitrary approximation[01:55] awibs: i still wont sell utter shit or something horribly mismatched because the wine itself does have an actual involvement[01:55] awibs: i also think of it kind of like solving a where's waldo page for someone[01:55] awibs: just because i point out the acidity and chalkiness doesnt mean it's not there[01:56] awibs: anymore than when you point at something and say "look" did you kill schrodinger's cat.[01:56] awibs: hell. involving quantum physics in this just made me less of a liar.[01:56] paul.j.fenwick@gmail.com: *laugh*[01:56] awibs: even if the acidity wasnt there, i could PUT IT THERE BY OBSERVING IT.[01:57] awibs: QUANTUM PHYSICS SCIENTIFICALLY VALIDATES PSYCHOSOMATIC EFFECTS.[01:57] awibs: shh. dont tell christian fundies this.[01:57] paul.j.fenwick@gmail.com: A crisp, refreshing wine with a quantum wave function of tastes that may collapse to acidity, oak, or lemongrass.

-Hunter got on stage and proposed to Nicole (Miranda) at the end of Minstrel's jam, to much cheering. If there was ever a perfect time place for him to ask her, that was it.-A rather hilarious comedic bit started by the Dalby twins and yes-and-ed by Nicole and I (and almost all the other musicians) that involved swooning over Dan Marcotte while he sang an incongruously nerdy song about D+D and pretended to look alarmed. He kept commenting between verses that this was not a typical reaction for this song to elicit from women. Nicole threw her handkerchief at him, and then someone whispered that it's too bad we didn't have a spare set of bloomers to throw. I started to take off my bloomers, but they got stuck around my shoes and I can't really reach my feet in a corset, so it turned into a bit of a production involving three people stripping off my bloomers at the foot of the stage. This evolved into everyone throwing articles of clothing at him, the crowd found it hilarious, and I laughed until I couldn't breathe.-Finally chose a good name for our act. The Bristol Girls. This is because there are multiple combinations of girls we may end up performing with at any time in the future, but the common denominator that always remains true is that we are all Bristol-born and Bristol-bred. (And yes, I was thinking "Bristol girls don't wear no clothes / heave away, haul away!")-Sort of ended up adopting Jeremy Welch for the second half of the day. He paused to visit one of our sets, then we went backstage to see if we could jam something, and ended up building an entire set list.-KICK ASS THREE PART HARMONY TO TODAY WHILE THE BLOSSOMS.-The freaking weather! It's fall! Yay!

tristan: yeah, our upstairs neighbor is pretty pissed at alex for still kicking in the front door every time instead of just remembering his key.me: i know, i told alex again to take a key today, and apologized to the neighbor on my way out.tristan: yeah, but i mean, he's pretty fucking pissed. like, the next time he sees alex he's going to beat the crap out of him.me: i'm more worried that will come out badly for our neighbor.